


Back to Olduvai

by Silent_So_Long



Category: Doom (2005)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Gen, Minor Character Death, Undead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-24
Updated: 2012-01-24
Packaged: 2017-10-30 02:03:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/326552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silent_So_Long/pseuds/Silent_So_Long
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John Grimm finds himself back in Olduvai, facing the ghosts of his past, quite literally.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Back to Olduvai

**Author's Note:**

> written for the [l4d_bigbang](http://l4d-bigbang.livejournal.com) challenge 2011. This fic follows event s in the 2005 movie, Doom, starring Karl Urban, Rosamund Pike and Dwayne Johnson . 
> 
> Awesome artwork made by glasslogic; the masterpost of which can be found [here](http://glasslogic.livejournal.com/31169.html)

[ ](http://tinypic.com?ref=11abkax)

 

John Grimm, the man otherwise known as Reaper, sat alone, steaming cup of aromatic coffee held in one hand. The coffee was slowly cooling, milky liquid sweet with too much sugar, just the way that Reaper liked it. He slowly lifted the cup to his lips, eyes pinned somewhere far distant, mind wandering farther still. His thoughts ranged over his past both as a Marine in years distant and in months previous. Both parts of his past seemed different, at odds against each other, yet still forming a part of him, all the same.

He’d been a changed man since his time upon Mars, striding through the corridors of Olduvai Research Facility, almost as though he’d left something behind of himself in the corridors. Perhaps he’d left that missing part of himself behind while navigating the Ark, that teleportation device that often made he and his team sick to the point of physically vomiting upon the floor of the Ark‘s chamber. Perhaps, the things he’d seen had changed him. Either way, he had left something of himself behind in Olduvai, namely his humanity.

He shuddered to think of the things that had transpired within those scientific corridors, of the extra Martian chromosome that had made changes to the molecular structures of humans, transforming all it touched either into monsters or super-humans, dependent upon their propensity for good or evil. It had been Reaper himself who’d posited his theories on what had happened, after the discovery of the first human remains with the extra chromosome and the additional discovery of Doctor Cormack, mad and missing an ear. They’d soon discovered that the extra chromosomes could be passed from one to the other, spread by ovipositors of those infected. One bite and anyone was up for kissing their humanity goodbye. Everything they saw within the facility pitted good men against each other and ripped the whole unit apart by death, infection and wandering the corridors alone.

He’d lost good men within that Martian outpost and Reaper allowed his thoughts to travel over them, to remember their names and their faces. Even though they weren’t their given names, they’d still been Sarge, The Kid, Destroyer, Goat et al to Reaper, inasmuch as he was Reaper to them and not John Grimm, his given name.

His humanity had gone in the aftermath of the fights in the corridors, chased away by the extra chromosome, C-24, being injected into his own body, molecular structure altered so far beyond the norm, he was no longer human. His propensity for good had turned him into one of the super-humans, and not, thankfully, one of the tormented, twisted monsters they’d had to face, including Sarge. In all that had happened to him in Olduvai, Reaper had to be grateful for that, at least.

As the bustle of crowds surrounded him, scurrying past on various innocuous - to Reaper - errands - he found that he’d never felt so alone as he did right then. There was no one there that could truly identify with him and his current situation. Even his sister, Samantha couldn’t identify with him any longer, despite the fact that she’d been the one who’d administered the last fatal blow to his humanity. She’d injected the C-24 into him to save his life, admittedly, yet still, she’d been the last one to truly see him as he had been and the first to see him as he’d become after the final, monstrous fight with Sarge.

As if his thoughts of Sarge brought up the other man’s image like a ghost, John thought he saw the tall and imposing form of the former Marine Sergeant, scowling, intense face concentrating solely upon Reaper. Reaper turned, looked up but the mirage of Sarge was gone, dissipating into the crowd as though he had never been. Reaper turned, hoping to catch the sight of Sarge’s back heading away from him perhaps, yet there was no sign of him. John sighed and turned back to his coffee, deciding that he hadn’t seen his CO after all, that it had just been a trick of the imagination induced by the stress of lately.

Still, however, that explanation did not settle Reaper’s mind, despite the fact that it was plausible enough. He’d been through a lot, both physically and mentally, and it would be understandable if he had seen one of those that had died. After all, they’d been together for a long time, serving together, fighting alongside each other and John had been present, admittedly responsible for Sarge’s death, despite the fact that Sarge could hardly be described as being himself either at the time. Sarge had been drunk on power, driven half insane by it, turned into the very breed of monster that Reaper had had to kill at the Research Facility. That only exacerbated his power-driven, power-hungry condition, whereas, with Reaper, the C-24 made him calmer, more considered and thoughtful, almost distantly restless. Samantha hadn’t minded, deeming with her doctor’s mind that he needed the time to himself after all that he’d been through, that his mind, as well as his body, needed the time to heal.

Although Reaper himself agreed with his sister, his twin older by no more than two minutes, and saw the merits in her words, he still wanted to see action again, too restless for his own good to remain as he was now. The chromosome was still twining through his veins, body needing action to escape the pent-up tension and need for action that was forever thrumming beneath the calm exterior.

Little did John Grimm, the man otherwise known as Reaper, know that his time for action would soon be nigh again ...

  


 

The sightings of Sarge did not stop at the coffee shop, John was to discover. On several occasions, Reaper thought he saw his CO, just out of the corner of his eye, disappearing from his peripheral vision mere moments after divesting the younger man of the most intense scrutiny. It seemed to Reaper as though there was some message, some higher purpose to all of this, yet John himself could not determine just what the message nor the purpose actually was. Sarge never spoke to him and seemingly did not want to either.

It took John a while to approach his sister about his visions of Sarge, feeling somehow silly for the things he’d seen. He found himself wondering if he wasn’t cracking up after all, pushed to the very edge of sanity by stress and battle fatigue, of losing his entire squadron during the course of a day or two upon a Martian research facility. It seemed plausible enough to him, considering the things they’d all witnessed there, of tests being run on human subjects, of monsters popping out of the very shadows and death, so much death everywhere. He wondered if he was crazy; after all, he was lucid enough to attribute cause and effect to his own craziness, wasn’t he?

Eventually, Samantha did find out and confirmed Reaper’s concerns, that perhaps it was the mind dealing with the terrors of the past, of being worn down by battles and she advised him to continue upon his self-prescribed course of rest. John, unconvinced, nevertheless agreed, although Samantha could tell that he wasn’t pleased by her decision.

Despite their reconciliation after spending so long apart prior to the events at Olduvai, John still railed against his elder sister. Samantha, in turn, expected this of him, both because of John owning the younger sibling syndrome and also knowing John as well as she did. There wasn’t much one could hide between twins after all, especially when one half was Reaper. He seemed to crave action as much as Samantha craved the clinical, apt to endanger himself for the thrill of it.

That was one of many reasons why he became a Marine, to experience thrills and excitement and also to get away from his home life and the deaths of their parents at a Martian archelogical dig site. Samantha hadn’t wanted him to go, yet John was too hard-headed to listen. Given all that had happened at Olduvai, John was beginning to wonder whether Samantha might have been right after all. He sighed to himself, knowing that it was a little late to worry over things such as his sister’s fears; he knew that concerns such as those were a little too late in coming for him now. The damage was done.

  


 

The Ark was back in commission by the end of the year. Although no one knew who had put the transportation system there, nor the reason for why it was even in existence, reverse engineers had had the mechanics apart and figured out how to fix the thing. It seemed as though some higher officials thought it a good idea to still use the facilities on Mars, despite the fact that things had not worked out for the best there.

John had railed against it, stating time and time again that people had died there, that he’d lost good men there, that there might still be some of the monsters left wandering the corridors, yet no one listened to him. His angry diatribes against the morality of it all were unheard, unheeded and largely ignored. Samantha, for the most part, agreed with the motives behind his diatribes, although there still was that clinical scientific side to her that prevented her from agreeing completely with John. In some respects she was just as curious to salvage what she could of the research held out there as the higher officials were.

John had argued against her too, finally subsiding when Samantha reminded him that the Martian chromosome had in fact saved his life. Without it, he would have died from the bullet wound he’d received just prior to the fight against Sarge. With the C-24 still running rampant in his veins, injuries healed instantaneously and he never grew sick nor tired. Given the right research, and stringent research at that, tests could be run to make sure that none of the future people stationed at the outpost turned out like the monsters that had threatened their livelihood so many months before and neither would the tests ran by the scientists upon prisoners be sanctioned again either. Samantha was determined about that, purely wanting Olduvai to remain an archaeological site.

Even though John was incensed by the re-activation of the Ark and even more incensed by the research still continuing despite everything, he could see the sense in the tests at least. He made Samantha promise that if she was put back on the team, she would ensure that very strict measures were taken, only subsiding when Samantha agreed, albeit with long-suffering sighs and many rolls of her eyes at John’s heated insistence. She’d been there for a lot of what had happened after the Marines had arrived, so knew the reasoning behind John’s insistent behaviour.

 

  


John still saw Sarge sometimes, fleeting glimpses at best but glimpses all the same. It became so frequent that John almost became accustomed to the sightings, although they never became less than vaguely unsettling. After all, the guy had died, sent through the Ark at the end of the fight with Reaper, grenade flung carelessly after him by Reaper’s own hand. To say that Sarge was dead was a surefire thing, yet still Reaper saw the ghost of Sarge everywhere.

Time enough had passed for him to be certain that it wasn’t post traumatic stress related any more. John was beginning to recover, to look forward to life ahead and to even make plans for his future. Although he was staying in the Marines, he was stationed as a mere teacher role now, training new people to become Marines. Although the new role seemed tame to him now, John decided it was a good kind of tame. That way no one got killed and he ensured that he instilled a high amount of caution in the newbies he was training up. He had the qualifications after all, cautiousness instilled in him after Olduvai.

And then the killings began to start. Olduvai was being re-populated by a new breed of scientist, with Samantha at the helm. John knew that she was keeping good on her promises to him that she was being morally and ethically stringent about the procedures that were being carried out there, and he trusted her.

John heard via one of Samantha’s live feeds that people were dying, a week after they‘d arrived. Concerned at first, John had assumed that the Martian chromosomes were reacting unfavourably again, that a new breed of monster was beginning to emerge, taking over the outpost and killing off the scientists. Samantha quickly waylaid those concerns and laid them to rest quite effectively. She knew that the chromosome weren’t affecting anyone the way they were before and that none were showing the same symptoms that had blighted them all before.

Instead, she said it seemed to be an outside, and unknown source, targeting mostly the Marines that sometimes were in attendance, ensuring the security of the facility. The murders, when they happened, were few enough and far enough between to be merely passed off as accidents at first, until there were enough deaths to not be a coincidence anymore. John, suspicious, told Samantha to remain where she was and that he’d be along as soon as he could get clearance.

  


 

“I’m surprised that you even came here,” Samantha observed as soon as John stepped out of the transportation beam of the Ark.

John weaved slightly, feeling sickened by the speed and the force of being zoomed through hyperspace from Earth to Mars in the space of several seconds. He swallowed back the bile successfully, determined not to vomit in front of his own sister. He knew that she had probably seen it all, especially when they were younger and he’d been a drunken teenager, coming home and sneaking in in the early hours of the morning. She’d been there when John had given into the alcohol burning through his veins, spewing the toxins out while Samantha stood by and made sure their parents didn’t discover John’s state. That was back when things had been better between them, when their parents had still been alive. Since the prior events at Olduvai, things were slowly beginning to strengthen between them once more. Still, John just about answered his sister’s statement.

“Yeah, had to, didn’t I?” he said, casting his hazel-eyed glare around the room he’d stepped into from the Ark . “I have previous experience here and all that jazz. Besides, you’re here again.”

“Touche,” Samantha said, with a smile. “I guess we both lost our colleagues, here, didn’t we?”

John grunted again, feeling the weight of his gun weighing heavily upon his shoulder. He didn’t get a chance to respond further to his sister, as other Marines began pouring through the Ark. Unlike John, they had not encountered the ramifications of travel by Ark before. If Reaper thought he had it bad and he’d experienced it multiple times before, then the men who’d travelled with him had it far worse. Several of them vomited upon the floor, skin sickly-pale and eyes seeming to stand and glare right from their heads. Reaper did not judge them; after all, some of his former colleagues had been unable to keep their stomachs from revolting before them. It happened to the best of men, in the end. The fact that Reaper was stronger now, and superhuman never was far from his mind. His new super-enhanced genes helped him to cope with teleportation better than the average human, although even he wasn‘t susceptible to the effects entirely.

He moved away, careful not to step in the mess upon the floor as Samantha instructed one of her assistants to clean up before someone slipped and fell. She then was called away back to her duties once more, leaving Reaper alone with his new platoon. It seemed odd to Reaper to effectively be in charge of a group of men, merely by proxy of having been there before and knowing the ropes, and also being more senior now than the fellows he’d ‘ported with. It seemed even weirder to him to have them refer to him still as Reaper, as though the ghosts from his past weren’t only limited to Sarge. His former comrades’ nickname had followed him too.

He gestured for the other men to follow him, spreading out in clinical, near silent formation to explore the realms of the facility, hoping to find evidence of a murderer on the loose. Even though their search proved nothing, Reaper was determined to find something. Given time, he knew things would begin to happen once more.

  


 

John was asleep when things eventually started happening. He heard Sarge’s voice calling him, deep voice commanding, telling him to wake, to stop sleeping on the job. Reaper turned away from the voice, still muzzy with sleep, eyes fluttering closed as a snore escaped his lips. He felt the cool brush of air press against his cheek and bare arm, skittering gooseflesh against his bare flesh and he shivered awake, hazy hazel eyes sleepy and indistinct in the darkness.

“Sam?” he murmured, thinking for a moment that his sister was in the room.

There was no answer, from Samantha or otherwise and his eyes drifted closed again of their own accord. His lips parted, body relaxing in sleep once more, hand curling to press fingertips against his palm. A snore trickled from his lips again, before he jerked awake, sitting upright when a scream echoed throughout the research facility. It sounded distant, yet it was hard to pinpoint exactly where it was with the rolling echoes that ratcheted around the place. He heard sudden rushing feet and he leapt from the bed, already reaching for his gun as he did so upon instinct. Years of marine training kicked in and he was out in the corridor, mostly naked , wearing nothing but his boxers as he abandoned his room. He ran, bare feet slapping against the metal floor underfoot, sending weird echoes reflecting and refracting about the place.

“Sam,” John yelled instinctively, and for an instant he heard nothing but the silence punctuated by his own running feet slapping against the floor.

It wasn’t Samantha who’d screamed. Instead, it was one of the Marines he’d brought with him, staring sightlessly up at the ceiling of his bedroom, body lax in eternal sleep. John swore loudly, as Marines and scientists alike crowded behind him. John leant forward, leaning one hand against the Marine’s neck, knowing without even checking that that the man was dead. He sighed, hand dropping to his side when he felt there was no pulse.

“He’s dead,” he threw over his shoulder.

His gaze rippled over the dead man’s body, yet he found that no injuries marred the Marine’s skin, no discernible injuries indicating the method of death. By the look on the man’s face and the unbroken state of his body, it looked as though he’d literally been scared to death.

“Sam, take the body away for examination. We have to find out what caused his death,” Reaper said, voice commanding.

Samantha nodded, wordlessly and gestured for two of her co-workers to do as John had ordered. John himself stood to one side and watched as the two men worked diligently to remove the dead man without causing further damage to the evidence that they did have. With little else to do, John returned to his quarters, to sleep and wait for the results to come back upon the man’s cause of death.

He did not expect to sleep, yet his mind soon drifted off, thoughts spiralling into something incoherent at first, before they coalesced into something more tangible and dreamlike.

  


John slept, mind’s eye travelling through the facility as it had been during the time he’d been there the first time. His bare feet once again slapped echoes against the metal floor yet he did not stop to wonder why his feet were bare. He ploughed ever onwards, deeper into the facility, into the grime and the ruined walls surrounding him, passing piles of scattered junked machinery shored up everywhere.

He could hear Sarge calling him, voice rolling ominously from somewhere inside the facility, bouncing off the walls and sending odd echoes every which way. It made his location hard to pinpoint, yet still Reaper forged onwards, needing to find Sarge yet not knowing exactly why. He frowned, scowl deepening lines between his dark brows as his hazel eyes scanned the shadows that lined the corridors, expecting movement at every turn yet seeing nothing, at first glance.

Eventually he came to the room where the Ark was held, glowing column swirling and coalescing as though transporting someone through. Reaper waited nearby, wary, body tensed to flee or to fight. His first instinct, however, would be to fight. His gun was raised and ready, and he had the fleeting concern regarding the fact that he’d brought his gun yet didn’t have any shoes. He wondered what type of person didn’t wear shoes and yet still had a gun; where were his priorities, indeed? He wondered if perhaps Samantha was right and that he needed the time off if he forgot such a thing as shoes.

He whirled when he heard a sound behind him, a slight tread as of someone standing behind him. Reaper reared back, gun pointing upwards at the other man’s coalescing chest.

“You’re dead,” Reaper said to Sarge. “You’re supposed to be dead. I killed you myself.”

“You really did live up to your nickname, didn’t you, Reaper?” Sarge asked, circling the other man with the slightest of smirks upon his face. “You certainly proved to be my Reaper, at any rate. You kill everything you touch in the end, don’t you?”

“That’s not true. I tried to save everyone. I’m trying now,” Reaper replied, gesturing with his gun to try and keep the barrel pointed at Sarge’s chest. “People are dying here, again, and I want to know why.”

Even now, John could see right through Sarge’s translucent form, his body shifting and oscillating as though he wasn’t quite real. Of course, the man was but a ghost, John reminded himself. He wasn’t real, wasn’t even there. Reaper closed his eyes, eyelids swooping down and up again slowly, as though expecting Sarge to have disappeared by the time Reaper opened his eyes again. Sarge was still there, closer now, so close Reaper could feel the heat baking impossibly from Sarge’s non-corporeal form. That should have been impossible, yet still Sarge was growing hotter, hotter, hotter still, as hot as a bomb is hot.

“I will see you burn for what you did to me,” Sarge told him. “You should have joined me. We could have ruled the world with our powers. Instead you chose to destroy me, your sergeant, and yet, still you continue with all the power of a god held within your frame. Semper Fi, John, Semper Fi. Brothers in arms, that’s what we’re supposed to be. I will see you burn for mutiny, Grimm.”

John jerked awake then, eyes flying open and a formless cry ripped from his throat as he did so. Sweat peppered his forehead liberally and he didn’t get to sleep for a very long time after that.

  


 

John did not mention his dream to anyone the following day, focussing instead upon patrolling the facility for signs of murderers. His mind wandered over the dead Marine of the night before, of his sightless eyes staring blankly into forever. Unconsciously, Reaper’s mind shifted to Sarge, of the presence of the other man that John had felt since entering Olduvai. He thought next of the haunting image of the other man that had seemingly followed him everywhere, and a frown began to pull his brows down low over intense hazel eyes.

He wondered then if there wasn’t some kind of a pattern, whether the dream of the night before had set the precedent for what had been happening. After all, the body count so far had racked up a surprising tally of Marines and no scientists. It seemed, to Reaper, as though somehow Sarge was behind it all, yet he found it hard to believe somehow. After all, Sarge was supposed to be dead. The nagging thought remained in Reaper’s mind, however, that perhaps somehow, some part of his CO had survived, forever trapped within the walls of Olduvai, returning to the last place he’d been alive, searching for vengeance, vengeance upon the man that had killed him.

Several times he felt the brush of an unseen hand upon the small of his back, against his arm, running through his hair. Each time he jerked away, eyes blazing, gun upraised as his gaze skittered about the corridor. Sometimes he was alone, no one there to even breathe upon him let alone touch him, at yet other times, the marines were there but not close enough for physical contact. Every time that he whipped around, gun raised, some of the marines would stare at him quizzically, as though they had not heard or felt a thing. John wondered if perhaps they hadn’t.

Throughout that day, the research facility grew hotter and hotter, temperatures rising so that the whole place felt as hot as a furnace. John could hear Sarge’s mocking voice floating through the realms of his dream from the previous night, mocking him with promises of making him burn for what he’d done. He tried to block it out, tried to block everything out bar the immediate job at hand, to keep the scientists safe. He found the job hard to do when his concentration kept slipping, induced by heat and fatigue and the constant drain upon him, induced by tension.

Later that day and he found that he wasn’t as alone as he thought. One of the men he’d travelled to Mars with via the Ark, approached him nervously. Despite trying to hide that nervousness, the emotion showed through plainly anyway, enhanced by already large eyes and a certain tightening of the mouth, a shifting to the gaze that would give even the most careful of people away.

“What’s up, Singh?” Reaper asked, aiming for calmness, despite being curious as to what the other man was about to say.

Albert Singh didn’t appear, to Reaper, to be the easily spooked type. In fact, the man was largely given over to loudness and almost arrogance, forever bragging about past conquests and fights he’d been in. Reaper privately thought that a lot of the fights Singh had claimed to have won had been staged within the realms of video games and not hand-to-hand combat that Reaper himself had been born in blood in. He kept such suspicions largely to himself, however, not wishing to throw such suppositions upon an untested man, until he’d seen said man in action. If things went wrong, then it would be Singh’s head on the platter and not his own. Certain people deserved their own downfall, in Reaper’s opinion.

“You’re Reaper, right? As in the Reaper?” Singh asked, eyes dodging nervously around them, rarely settling upon John’s face.

“Not quite. Not the skeleton dude, at any rate,” John replied, attempting levity and remaining unsurprised when said levity fell flat.

Singh didn’t look the joking kind even under ordinary circumstances. John guessed that the sound of Singh’s own voice often drowned out everyone else's, too busy singing his own praises to hear what anyone else had to say. He sighed, broad shoulders dipping with that one movement, before he inclined his head to the smaller man.

“Sure, I’m the Reaper, if you’re meaning am I the one who came here before.,” John conceded, wearily. “Not something I want to talk about though, kid.”

Singh, usually one to pronounce just how adult he was, even at the tender age of 22, didn’t react to being termed a kid by the older man. Instead, he nodded, head bobbing a little quickly, a little too nervously for Reaper’s liking. When a man got to being that nervous, he tended to be trigger happy, John knew from experience. He wondered if perhaps he should just send Singh to his quarters, to confine him there until either the danger was over or until he calmed down, whichever circumstance happened first.

“Do you think there’s something here?” Singh asked, and his voice quavered only slightly. “I think there is.”

John had to hand it to him to keep his voice so steady despite the very obvious fear that turned the other mans eyes wide and scared. It still didn’t endear the other man to John very much, however.

“There’s a lot of things here, kid,” John replied, tersely. “Most of which are best left buried in the past.”

“I’m serious, Reaper,” Singh replied, a little more sharply than before.

John nodded, relief filtering just slightly through him at that. Anger he could use; fear he could not. Even anger had to be moderated; extreme emotions of any kind bred hair-triggers.

“Go on,” John replied, slowly, in his best I’m-listening tones.

“I don’t know how much you know about Indian culture, Reaper, but coming from an Indian background makes me well versed in the subject,” Singh said.

“I’m not surprised,” John replied, a smile finally touching his lips at the return of Singh’s arrogance.

His slight sarcasm was lost on the other man, however, who took Reaper’s comment as a compliment, instead of a rail against his arrogance.

“Do you know anything about bhutas?” Singh asked, finally getting to the point.

John shrugged, knowing little about Indian culture bar enjoying some of the food. He doubted a bhuta was a form of curry, however and didn’t want to cause undue offence by his ignorance.

“Next to nothing,” John replied, honestly.

“Well, a bhuta is a spirit, a ghost if you will. It’s the spirit of a man who’s died a violent death, and his body remaining unburied,” Singh replied, a clinical, almost maniacal cast to his gaze now. “I have felt the presence of such a being, even dreamt about it last night.”

“Is that right?” John asked, sharply, immediately thinking of his own dream of Sarge and the feeling he’d had since before he’d even stepped back upon the floored corridors of Olduvai.

“I don’t suppose you’d know of anyone who died a violent death?” Singh asked, a little naively.

“Kid, I’m a Marine. The status alone should tip you off to violent deaths being par for the course,” John replied, irritation with the other man’s naiveté showing through now. “You really have no idea, do you?”

To his credit, Singh had the foresight to at least blush for his previous words.

“Of course. Guess I’m not as experienced in the ways of warfare as I like to imagine,” he conceded.

“Imagine. Right. And no, you’re not, at least not compared to someone like me,” John replied, with a disgusted snort. “True Marines never brag about what happens in warfare. Kinda distasteful.”

“Right. You’ve got me there,” Singh replied, a little shame-faced. “Not the heap big Marine I like to present myself as, am I?”

“Hardly. Now about this bhuta. Any intel on who it is?” Reaper asked carefully, wondering if anything Singh would say would correlate as being like Sarge.

“He was big, bigger than me at any rate,” Singh replied, confidently.

Reaper found himself thinking that that was no hard feat. Singh was little over 5’ 5” tall and Reaper himself had almost a foot on him, let alone about 50 pounds of weight. Reaper didn’t place good odds on Singh’s capabilities in battle, given his small, almost feeble stature.

His attention was diverted by Singh’s continued observations upon the bhuta, of an imposing man as large as Reaper, of a scowling face and imposing attitude. He also identified the spirit as having the name Sarge and that he was looking for Reaper himself. John harrumphed and thought to himself that his earlier thoughtful meanderings of Sarge’s spirit searching for vengeance hadn’t been so far wide of the mark, after all.

“Sarge,” Reaper muttered, more to himself than to the man before him. “It really is you.”

“Who is Sarge, exactly, and what does he have to do with you?” Singh asked, and Reaper almost slapped him down for his impudence.

“He was my former CO and part of what I don’t talk about,” Reaper replied.

Singh nodded, and remained largely silent at first. Then he asked the inevitable question.

“Are you responsible for his death?” he asked.

“I said, he’s part of what I don’t talk about,” Reaper said, shortly.

“I need to know this, Reaper,” Singh said, just as angrily. “I don’t need to know the whole story if you’re not willing to tell it, just the important details. I may be able to help.”

“Help? How may you help?” Reaper asked, in disbelief.

“I may be not much of a fighter, but there are things I can do, certain capabilities most others can’t do. I can talk to the dead, communicate with them, even perform exorcisms if need be,” Singh replied, wearily, seeming smaller now as though giving over that information had somehow diminished him, made him less of a man. “Amongst the Indian caste system, I would be known as an Ojha.”

“Exorcisms? Seriously?” Reaper asked, uncertain as to whether to even believe Singh or not.

“You would do well to believe in my words, John. After all, you’ve got a murderous ghost on the loose, on top of all that you’ve already been through,” Singh replied, sharp eyed gaze pinning Reaper to the spot.

Perhaps it was the use of his real, given name instead of the usual Reaper that attracted John’s attention and made him think twice about his previous sarcasm. He did not apologize for it however; knowing Singh, the other man would only think that he had one over a superior officer anyway, if John had apologized. Instead he grunted and inclined his head for Singh to continue.

The other man outlined what needed to be done, and it sounded very much to John like the very little he knew about Christian exorcisms. Singh explained that the basic means he would have to perform would involve various mantras, as used in the Tantric and Vedic traditions. Reaper agreed, tentatively, not holding much stock in exorcisms or ghostly mumbo-jumbo to truly believe that Singh could help. However, he decided to give the younger man the benefit of the doubt, anyway. If what Singh was saying proved to be wrong, then the egg would be well and truly stuck upon his face and not Reaper’s, John wagered. After all that Reaper himself had been through and all that he‘d transformed into, he was in no position to disbelieve anyone else.

  


John stole through the night silent corridors of Olduvai, lights flickering incessantly above his head. His gun was drawn and ready for the proverbial bear, or in Reaper’s case, ready for bhuta. He wasn’t entirely sure he believed that Sarge was essentially a vengeance spirit, yet somehow, he thought that if Sarge could come back as anything, it definitely would be that, just to spite Reaper. Sarge was always one to hold a grudge; Reaper himself was testament to that.

Reaper’s extra keen senses were on the alert, tracking every last sound that no others would be able to detect. He even heard the faint sounds of Samantha moving restlessly in her sleep, strengthening his resolve to find Sarge and kill him again, for the sake of protecting family.

He felt it before he saw and heard it, the sudden shift in temperature and tension in the air, sudden heated draughts rushing towards his face as Sarge’s threatening chuckles filled the air around Reaper’s ears.

“Reaper,” Sarge hissed into his ear on the way past and then he was gone.

Reaper turned around, jaw clenching as far off behind him, Singh tensed, feeling the brush of Sarge against his face. Singh looked about ready to piss his pants, he was so scared and Reaper sighed more to himself than to the corridor and whoever might be listening. The man was nothing more than a wet-behind the ears kid, despite his outward bravado and pretensions of being a heap-big-exorcism expert - Singh’s choice of words, definitely not Reaper’s.

“Keep your guard up, kid,” Reaper called to Singh. “Don’t let it get to you.”

Singh called back something indistinct, that Reaper wagered was more bragging, accusations hurled at Reaper’s back that Singh was no pussy nor a shrinking violet. Reaper wasn’t convinced. Compared to him and what he could do, Singh was a pussy. Singh just didn’t know it yet nor what he was dealing with. Reaper continued, waiting for Sarge to make his attack once more.

“C’mon, Sarge, you want a piece of me? Payback? Come and get it,” Reaper growled, gun still pointing forward.

Against the vengeance spirit, the gun was useless, yet Reaper knew it couldn’t hurt to have it to hand anyway. It made him feel better to have it there all the same. Singh had told him that bhuta were not above possessing people, that he was willing to be a casualty of war if it came down to it. Reaper hadn’t liked the idea of Singh essentially sacrificing himself, yet the other man had said something that made Reaper respect him.

“Let me do this. If anyone wants to remember me for something, let them remember me for this,” Singh had said, which, for once considering who was saying it, actually made sense.

Let Singh have his chance at bravery. They each had their shot at it eventually. Reaper was already at an advantage, because he was essentially superhuman and pretty damn hard to kill. Singh did not have the luxury of having that. Let him deal with the situation to the best of his human abilities and see if he really was as man as he talked himself up to be.

“Reaper,” Singh yelled, a clear warning to his voice as Reaper felt the distinct charge in the air, of Sarge rushing for him.

Reaper ducked, felt the essence of the vengeance spirit roil overhead, and the last message Sarge would ever utter.

“You killed me, Reaper. You lived up to your name. Now it’s payback time,” Sarge said.

“I don’t think so, Sarge,” Reaper muttered, imbuing as much sarcasm as he could manage to the last word.

He hefted his gun, ducking and rolling every time that Sarge made a dash for him. Even though Reaper knocked into plenty of walls and barrages, he wasn’t seriously hurt, every bruise, every scrape and knock and open wound that Sarge opened up in his skin healing closed in an instant.

“You ain’t got nothing on me, Sarge,” Reaper yelled, still refusing to use his gun other to knock the spirit away from himself whenever he was able to.

For a non-corporeal being such as a spirit, Sarge could be surprisingly corporeal at odd moments, when the anger coalesced enough to lend his amorphous frame enough weight to be almost solid. Reaper took advantage of these moments, tracking the other spirit’s movements easily, easier than Singh’s all too human eyes could possibly track on their own. Singh himself looked aghast, in awe of the battling Reaper as the older man held his own against something that Singh himself couldn’t quite see.

“Exorcism, now. What are you waiting for, man?” Reaper yelled at him, when it seemed as though the kid was about to fluff his lines and woof his cookies upon the floor.

Singh saluted and started reeling off the exorcism chant in Indian, dark eyes trying to track the bhuta’s movements through Reaper’s own body jerks, yet it wasn’t enough. Singh, ultimately was too slow, and the bhuta took advantage of that when Singh's attention was too divested in the ancient exorcism ritual. Sarge’s consciousness streamed into Singh, punching him back against the far wall and choking off the next to last words Singh would ever utter. Singh screamed, body taut with the force of Sarge’s anger and vengeance, muscles spasming wildly as he fought against the bhuta trying to possess him. Reaper watched, gun raised trying to get a clear shot yet Singh was flailing too wildly and Reaper did not want to kill an innocent man. Finally, before Sarge could gain control; of his body, he looked at Reaper one last time, infinite sadness and infinite wisdom imbuing his features.

“Shoot me, John,” he said. “It’s the only way. I’ve got this.”

His eyes fluttered closed then, before opening, gaze owned by the consciousness of Sarge. There was not a trace of Singh anywhere left in his face, his stance, his too-young gaze and Reaper groaned, knowing that he had no choice but to shoot Singh after all.

“Now I can kill you, Reaper,” Sarge yelled at him. “I will be the reaper to the Reaper.”

“It’s just a name, Sarge,” Reaper told him. “I’m the Reaper, as in Grimm, not because I kill.”

Sarge didn’t respond; instead he screamed and charged and there was nothing left for Reaper to do but to pull the trigger.

  


“There was nothing else you could do,” Samantha told John as they stood side by side the blasted body of Albert Singh.

“He was just a kid,” Reaper told her, angrily.

“He was a brave kid and essentially saved your life. He made the ultimate sacrifice,” Samantha told him.

“A sacrifice for someone he hardly knew,” John replied, with a clear scoff to his tone.

“He idolised you. They all do,” Samantha said, inclining her head towards the remaining Marines standing at a distance. “You might not know it, nor appreciate it, but you’re like a hero to them.”

John huffed but didn’t argue against it. For once, it seemed to him as though he had a purpose in life, to live and to lead by example instead of just scarping out a form of half-existence.

“Go home, John. It’s over,” Samantha said, finally. “There’s nothing more for you here. Go back to teaching.”

“I will,” John promised, before turning to leave.

~~ the end ~~

  



End file.
